Since I work in the powersports industry, I receive a trade magazine called Motorcycle & Powersports News, which is aimed at retail dealers. I just got around to reading the October issue. In the F&I column, author Steve Dodds wrote this:

"...if you have a customer who is balking about the interest rate you are showing them and you know you added two points to the rate, take this path: 'If I could save you a point or two on your rate, would that make you happy?' If they agree that it would, then you 'make a call to the bank' and get confirmation that you can do that. This makes you the hero for helping them out. If you tell them that you can drop the rate two points and do not defer to a higher power, then you become the person who tried to rip them off."

Did you get that professional advice? The secret to successfully exploiting customers' ignorance is to LIE about it when needed.

What does it say about this industry and (as well as our day and age) that an author is willing to sign his good name to that sort of advice in a professional trade publication? And it doesn't even raise an eyebrow? It says that there are lots of people nowadays who don't equate the sort of pretense he describes with 'lying.' These people are called 'salesmen.'

To say that you need to call, when you don't, and then tell the customer you've done so when, in fact, no such call ever happened, in order to hide the fact that you attempted to deceive him in the first place...yea, that's lying. At least, I don't know what else to call it. Actually, yes, I do know, or at least I know what one dealer called it: "theater of persuasion." That term was taught to me by the owner of a motorcycle dealership where I worked as a young man. It wasn't really lying, he claimed, it was just play-acting. And it wasn't wrong, he claimed, because customers know and expect the dealership to be disingenuous; they're in on it. They try to work over the dealer from their end while the dealer is trying to work them over from the other.

The problem with this characterization is that the dealership has the home-court advantage. They do this for a living. They have trade magazines coaching them how to do it better every day. And people like Steve Dodds, convincing them that being a sleeze is okay.

At least my dealer was 100% honest. When I asked if there was any room to move on the interest rate (21% as I recall, it was a while ago) he replied that he couldn't change it as "that the legal maximum we can charge".

I looked at a 2010 Jeep TJ last week at a dealer in Spencer, WV. Jeep has been there for a while and is a nice example of a plain jane TJ. Low miles at 16K+. I looked in glove box and found the window sticker from 2010, $22K.....asked sales person for cash price out the door-----$20,783.....I told him thing sold new for $22K new and he wanted to argue.......when I told him the sticker was in the glovebox he shut up. When we were leaving he made a beeline to the glovebox........I love to do that shit!!!!!!!

I looked at a 2010 Jeep TJ last week at a dealer in Spencer, WV. Jeep has been there for a while and is a nice example of a plain jane TJ. Low miles at 16K+. I looked in glove box and found the window sticker from 2010, $22K.....asked sales person for cash price out the door-----$20,783.....I told him thing sold new for $22K new and he wanted to argue.......when I told him the sticker was in the glovebox he shut up. When we were leaving he made a beeline to the glovebox........I love to do that shit!!!!!!!

Too bad you didn't think to move the sticker somewhere else in the vehicle.

ya, i've noticed many dealers aren't really prepared for the fact that the internet has a vast store of historical and current price data - they continue to think they can get away with classic techniques (and honestly, so many people don't look, they can.. for now)

when we were shopping for the impreza, we walked in to several dealerships that wanted well over MSRP while trying to convince us they were cutting us a deal - had a used car salesman try to tell me that a 98 grand prix was worth 12k "cause it had leather" and had "only" 130,000 miles on it, because, you know, resale value and being a rare car.

I always figured dealers are testing for gullibility rather than not knowing that some customers are going to be well researched.

Back when we bought new cars Grreatwife always put her considerable research skills to use first. We walked in knowing what we wanted, what we were willing to pay and with a preapproved loan check for our max amount. The dealer could negotiate if they wanted. But we would just leave and wait for the call back. Which always happened.

Then you have my coworker. The guy got a big settlement check, walked into the Ford dealer and dropped the whole damned thing paying full retail for a max bling F-150 complete with all the dealer bells and whistles. When talking to him it became clear that he thought the price in the window was the minimum you should expect to pay.

I don't know how many customers are like us and how many are like my coworker. But I figure there are enough like my coworker to make it worth the sales person's time to test for gullibility before giving a decent price.

I had the same thing happen when I picked up a used Kia. When I told the sales guy the car was only $1000 more then their asking price when new he tried to say the price was much more. His jaw dropped when I told him the original window sticker was stuck inside the owners manual in the glove box.

These threads kill me. I'm 48 years old. I have NEVER bought a new car. I probably never will. I've been with a couple of friends when they bought new cars and the whole process just absolutely infuriates me. I won't even go anymore. I hate the places. I hate going there even to buy parts!